Friday

Mar 23, 2012 at 12:01 AMMar 23, 2012 at 11:14 PM

Newt Gingrich continued his discussion about himself on Thursday at a campaign event in Louisiana, saying the only things standing between him and a smooth path to the oval office are the president’s unwillingness to tackle the high price of gas, the media’s inability to properly frame his grand ideas, and Chevrolet’s belligerent insistence on marketing an electric car.

Newt Gingrich continued his discussion about himself on Thursday at a campaign event in Louisiana, saying the only things standing between him and a smooth path to the oval office are the president’s unwillingness to tackle the high price of gas, the media’s inability to properly frame his grand ideas, and Chevrolet’s belligerent insistence on marketing an electric car.

“The thing I find most disheartening about this campaign is that the perfectly flawless message I am running on — a message that my opponents, like my second wife, can’t seem to comprehend — is not getting through to the voters. And for that I can only fault somebody else,” Mr. Gingrich told an audience at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston.

His supporters at the rally, enthusiastic backers of Mr. Gingrich’s so-called war on comprehensibility, waved signs declaring, “Don’t Believe the Liberal Gas Prices!” and “Open the Algae Refuge Preserve to Drilling,” slogans that have become a fixture of Mr. Gingrich’s campaign events recently.

Buoyed by the fervent crowd, an energetic Mr. Gingrich told the gathering he remained confident that in the end he and his brilliance would find a way around the media bias and lack of votes that have hobbled his otherwise faultless campaign, and he would quite possibly become the first man in history to win the presidency without winning the presidential primary.

“I encourage you to think big, to help me come up with solutions to my problems,” Mr. Gingrich said. “I am here to make history and you are here to watch me do it.”

The former speaker of the House said he was grateful for the show of encouragement from his audience, but he did remind them that he didn’t need theirs or anyone else’s vote to win the Republican nomination or the presidential race.

“That much should be obvious,” he said. “Why else would I still be in the race if that wasn’t the case? But that’s something the elite media is unwilling to write about and my opponents in the contest don’t grasp.”

Mr. Gingrich made no mention about ending his opponents’ campaigns, making only a slight reference to his plan to take his run all the way to the convention in August by “bringing new solutions and using new science and new technology and new management” to solve his delegate count problems.

He pointed out that he has lost all but two contests for delegates in the Republican primary, including in Alabama and Mississippi, where he expected to do well.

“If that is not proof that the elite media and my ex-wives are out to get me, then I don’t know what is,” an invigorated Mr. Gingrich told the crowd in Louisiana.

Then turning to the topic of Mitt Romney as the inevitable Republican nominee, Mr. Gingrich said of his GOP opponent, “If you’re the front-runner and you keep coming in third, you’re not much of a front-runner — unless you are me.”

The struggling candidate did acknowledge that fundraising would be very difficult going forward. He highlighted his 175,000th donor, who had contributed $2.50, a nod to Mr. Gingrich’s promise that under his energy plan the price of gas would drop to that amount per gallon.

The presidential hopeful said he appreciated the gesture, and the show of confidence in his energy plan, but, in an about-face, Mr. Gingrich suggested that it might be worthwhile to give his plan a second look, that maybe the country would be better off if in the near term if the price of fuel skyrocketed to about $10 million a gallon.

“Yes, consumers would feel it at the pump,” Mr. Gingrich said, “but it would be much better for my fundraising and clearly that would be a long-term benefit to everyone.”

As the audience gasped at the thought of eight-figure prices at the gas pump, Mr. Gingrich promised to buy each of them an electric Chevy Volt automobile that they would be able to destroy in a grand, anti-liberal demolition party on the White House front lawn once Mr. Gingrich is elected and lowers the price of gas.

“I owe a great debt to my expansive ideas — and to a lot of other people, come to think of it,” he said. “But God and my super PAC willing, you will be able to experience that same debt for yourselves.”

Philip Maddocks is a political satire columnist for GateHouse News Service. He can be reached at pmaddocks@wickedlocal.com.

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